


Kubla Khan

by sageness



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Aliens Make Them Do It, Alternate Reality, Community: sgareversebang, Cover Art, Double Penetration, Dubious Consent, Earth, F/M, Goa'uld, Group Sex, Kinks, M/M, Multi, Negotiations, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-03
Updated: 2011-06-03
Packaged: 2017-10-20 02:26:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/207785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sageness/pseuds/sageness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a Goa'uld incursion in Dubai.  SG-10 gets put on the case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kubla Khan

**Author's Note:**

> Title after Coleridge. AU in which Teyla and Ronon are from Milky Way planets. The Goa'uld wars continue. The Ori don't exist.
> 
> Enormous thanks to in_the_bottle for creating such a great prompt image. HUGE thanks to samjohnsson, malnpudl & petra for extensive early plot help and support & to andeincascade, petra, and samjohnsson for prereading and betas! <3

  
[Please go here to feedback the art](http://sgareversebang.dreamwidth.org/22618.html)!

  


  


  


"Good morning, everyone." Woolsey entered the SGC conference room wearing a black suit, a dark tie, and a smile John didn't like. Unconsciously, he tugged at his own black SGC uniform jacket and wondered what they were in for. Across the table, Ronon was handing Teyla a mug of tea and taking his seat. Next to John, Rodney was looking at Woolsey with open suspicion. Never mind that the NID had supposedly cleaned house.

General Landry walked in, then, laid a file folder on the table, and looked around the room, then back at Woolsey, who made an 'after you' gesture to the general.

"Good morning, SG-10. I'll keep this short and sweet," Landry said at last. "Your usual role is in offworld missions, but the NID needs some help and in the spirit of interdepartmental cooperation, you're the team for the job. Mr. Woolsey has complete authority and will brief you on the situation." He scratched his head. "Was there anything else I needed to say?" he asked Woolsey, who shrugged. "I don't know, either. Good luck, everyone. I know you'll go out there and kick some Goa'uld ass."

"Yes, sir," John said as the general left, but he was thinking _what the ever-loving fuck was that?_

Rodney folded his arms over his chest and glared at Woolsey. "Sorry, but since when do we get farmed out to the men in black? We don't do covert intelligence work, at least not more than happens in the course of any given gate mission. Or are you that low on personnel after the Trust purge?"

John shared a glance with Teyla and Ronon. She cleared her throat but Rodney, of course, didn't take the hint. He was too busy being grouchy and sleep-deprived, which was John's fault for sleeping over; but how was he supposed to know they were going to get called in on a Sunday morning? Besides, it didn't give Rodney the right to be an asshole to the boss, however temporarily they had to deal with him.

Woolsey smiled tightly from the head of the table and pressed a button on his tablet, bringing the screen to life. "Thank you for your concern, Dr. McKay. Let us begin, shall we? A situation is developing in the Middle East, and current NID operatives are not, ah, best-suited to the task."

"Why?" Rodney asked. John glared at him and kicked his foot under the table. "What?" Rodney made a face at him. "It's a valid question!"

Woolsey cleared his throat. "Largely because NID agents tend to be solo operatives. We believe this mission requires a mixed gender team, a person who can pass as a successful private sector engineer, and an obviously sincere friendship among you all."

"Um, wait, what?" Rodney said.

"Perhaps we should start again from the beginning," Teyla said.

"An excellent suggestion." Woolsey touched his tablet. "Allow me to show you some video, please."

John watched as security camera footage appeared on the large monitor on the conference room wall. Rodney shifted his chair closer to John's to get a better view, which did nothing to make John less hyper-aware of him. Woolsey hit pause on a group of people having drinks together. "This was taken at a hotel in Dubai. Here you can see three of our State Department personnel with the junior ambassador from China and her group." The seven of them were gathered around a well-lit table in a hotel bar's atrium area. Silver-lit water trickled down the marble wall behind them, interspersed with lush green ferns.

"Nice place," John said from across the table.

"Watch," said Woolsey, pressing play. On the screen, a man in a long off-white robe and red-checked headdress raced into view, a maelstrom of panic disrupting the bar. He was running so fast he fell half-across the diplomats' table before recovering. His mouth moved and he kept looking over his shoulder. There was no sound. "He's speaking to them in English. We've had lip-readers corroborate the statements of the people he accosted, and I have a transcript of it here, but I'd like you to see the rest first."

A moment later, two enormous security personnel dressed in indistinct uniforms loomed up behind him, grasped him by the arms, and hauled him forcibly away. The video cut to a camera that must have been located high in the lobby's vaulted ceiling. Far below, the man managed to twist free and tried to run, but one of the guards hit him with a Taser. The recording ended with one of the security men slinging him over a shoulder. Woolsey added, "His body was found next to a desert highway two days later."

Ronon frowned. "That was sloppy work, especially if they didn't want him to be found."

"I agree. It seems to show great ignorance or hubris...unless it was intentional misdirection," replied Teyla thoughtfully. "What did he tell them?"

Woolsey picked up his tablet and began to read. " 'Please, forgive my intrusion, I am of his highness the sheik's household and—please—in the Foreign Service we hear things, yes? You have a committee for the planet's security. No, there is no time; trust that I am correct. You know the Bridge Suite?' which is where he points upward," Woolsey interjected. " 'It isn't human, you see. The eyes glow. He steals the souls of everyone he is amused by. Tell your people they're here!' " Woolsey put the tablet down. "The last part was shouted as the security men dragged him away. I omitted the protests of the diplomats."

"Jesus," said Rodney.

"How old is this?" asked John. If there were Goa'uld in Dubai, then there could be Goa'uld anywhere; but in Dubai they would have access to stupendous wealth, resources, influence.

"Going on fifty-three hours." Woolsey scrolled down his tablet; the video began to replay on the wall. "As far as we can tell, there has been no change in the daily workings of the Dubai royal family or at the Atlantis resort. None of the American or Chinese Foreign Service personnel have received any threats, but the discovery of the Emirati's body implies a certain intimidation factor."

"Wait, so he was in the royal family?" Rodney asked.

"Not in succession. His name was Saif al-Gharib, and he was either a nephew or an illegitimate son of the Emir. He was educated in Britain and worked as a mid-level staffer in their foreign office." Woolsey looked up from the file. "Incidentally, the term 'Emirati' is used by all citizens of UAE descent, whether they're related to the emir's family or not. It distinguishes them from foreign workers and expatriates living in Dubai."

"Thank you," said Teyla. "Does anyone know what this man was doing at Atlantis?"

"Not for certain; however, the luxury hotels are commonly used for entertaining foreign dignitaries and their, ah, guests." Woolsey averted his eyes from Teyla, keying his tablet so a series of photos of the resort appeared on the screen, thankfully replacing Saif's screaming face. "Families, too, of course. Dubai is a major tourist destination, after all."

"But families aren't required." John had been able to take leave there once, totally off the books because it hadn't been safe to travel as obvious military. It was a far cry from Bangkok, but still.

"No, no," agreed Woolsey in a muted voice, "the sex trade is alive and well, however illegally, in Dubai. Though, I understand that hotels are required to make every effort to encourage a virtuous public image."

John nodded. He would explain to the others later if he had to, but he probably wouldn't have to. "Do we know who's renting out the Bridge Suite?"

"Ah," Woolsey answered, frowning at his file, "it's actually marked in their computers as reserved for a private guest of the hotel."

"Huh." Rodney was looking at his laptop; it looked like he'd found the hotel's website. "The going rate for a suite like that has to be astronomical."

"So, we go in and nail the Goa'uld, right?" asked Ronon.

Woolsey took a breath and glanced around the conference table at them. "Would that it were that simple," he said and something in John's gut went cold. "You'll begin by gathering intelligence. We need to find out how many Goa'uld there are, if they have any Jaffa, if they have any ships—"

Rodney interrupted, impatient as ever. "Surely the Daedalus can tell from orbit whether there are any Goa'uld ships in space. We have the technology to do this the smart way."

"Do we?" Woolsey raised an eyebrow. "Are our sensors better than their latest cloaking technologies? Also, they could have ships hidden in the desert, either buried under the sand or concealed with technology our sensors can't penetrate. They could have hidden ships on Earth thousands of years ago."

"Great," answered Rodney. "That's just fantastic. As if we don't have enough problems."

John said, "You don't have anyone there on the ground?"

Woolsey smiled a bitter smile. "In a word, no. The State Department was rather slow in contacting the IOA, and then the IOA felt a need to corroborate with China. Then we had to obtain the video from Atlantis."

John shook his head. Fucking bureaucrats. "So, three committees for a Homeworld Security issue that should have gone straight to the Pentagon."

"Yes, yes, whatever," Rodney interrupted, drumming fingers on his laptop keys as he did when he was thinking at light speed. "I'll find out when the last time they did a detailed sweep of the solar system looking for stars misaligned by a cloak. It's slower than scanning for power traces, but maybe we'll get lucky. Also, I think we can perform a detailed scan of the desert and seafloor around Dubai and look for anomalies, if nothing else. I'll just," he said, typing, "get Novak started."

John watched Rodney's hands—he'd always had a thing for big, capable hands—and then realized he was staring, damn it. He forced his attention down to his old-fashioned yellow legal pad and jotted down a few notes to make it look like he'd been reading something important off Rodney's screen. Not that Woolsey would care about fraternization regs necessarily, but he might, and John didn't want to think about someone with Woolsey's level of power interfering.

"You do not know where this Goa'uld came from?" Teyla was saying.

"No," Woolsey replied. "Apparently it could have arrived any time in the last five thousand years.

"Or it could have been here all along if it has a sarcophagus," said Ronon.

"I believe an SG-1 report from several years ago also indicated a Goa'uld could live indefinitely as long as it changes hosts every four hundred years." Teyla looked back at the screen with the long shot of Atlantis, situated at the apex of the palm-shaped artificial island, from over the shimmering blue water. "Would the man's family not be able to help us, do you think?"

Woolsey shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know. I rather have the impression that men in his position maintain absolute separation between their work and home lives, but there could be exceptions. I really haven't the foggiest."

"Right," said John. "When do we leave?"

"A moment, Colonel. This mission will not be a brute-force strike. The target occupies the crown jewel suite of a world-renowned five star hotel and may even be monopolizing the resort's VIP services. We need you and your team to confirm any and all Goa'uld present, whether there is a queen—" John shivered, imagining a Goa'uld queen turning Earth into a planet of Jaffa and future Goa'uld. "—if they possess a tank of young symbiotes waiting for hosts, if they have Jaffa, and if the Goa'uld have a foothold in the royal family of Dubai. I must stress, too, that there are significant international political implications if any of this goes wrong."

John sighed. Then he remembered Woolsey saying "civilian engineer" and "woman". "So, if this isn't a strike, then we're going in undercover as civilians?"

"You three are going as tourists. Dr. McKay, you'll be going to Dubai on business while your friends come along to see the sights. We'll have an agent pose as an architect for you to conduct a meeting with."

John stifled a laugh at Rodney's expression. "I'm apparently extremely generous, aren't I?" Rodney paused. "Well, of course I am, but would I take my friends to Dubai? Really?" He looked at John.

"You'd take me to Dubai," John said, smirking. "If only so you'd have someone to bitch at about the heat."

Rodney snorted. "Teyla? Ronon? Want to take a trip to the most obscenely ostentatious lap of luxury on the planet?"

"I'm in," said Ronon. Teyla just smiled coolly.

Woolsey sat back. "I am aware that this isn't your usual type of assignment." He hesitated. "There are particular risks you may face here that you don't in straightforward military operations."

"It is a Goa'uld," Teyla said, using the tone of voice that always reminded John that she hadn't been raised on Earth; she'd just adapted almost aggressively well to Earth-life. Things had been different on her planet. The Asgard offered nominal protection but the Goa'uld threat was constant. Ronon wasn't from Earth either, but his world hadn't been prime recruiting ground for new hosts.

"If you will recall what the late Sayyed Saif said about the Bridge Suite guest taking away people's souls," Woolsey said. "That comment is remarkably similar to statements made about Goa'uld who use mind control chemicals on their subjects."

"Oh, crap," Rodney said, a bare moment before John did, too.

"Harems," Woolsey said, clearing his throat, "are a strong possibility, and, well, we'll be able to surmise more once you discover this Goa'uld's identity and we can trace his historical record. We assume it will be posing as a god, as is typical for them."

John swallowed. He was on the verge of saying, "So you picked us to infiltrate its harem?" But he had a feeling Woolsey's answer would be, "If that's what it takes," and in any case, Rodney was talking.

"Yes, yes, but back to the mind control," Rodney said. "If I'm remembering the reports correctly, SG-1 saw two different types of it. The first one, used by Apophis and Seth, was an aerosol organism that took complete control of the victims' brains, and the effect was permanent until you got an electric shock—which, ouch—but then you were cured forever. Hathor's formula, on the other hand, used pheromones, so women were immune to it. Plus, the general symptoms had an area of effect and wore off on their own. Now, do we have any idea what we might be dealing with?"

Woolsey shook his head. "The intelligence you've seen is all we have. We have no grounds on which to speculate."

"Yet," said Teyla.

"Yet," Woolsey agreed.

"Will we have symbiote poison?" Ronon asked, "Or did you want us to try to capture it?"

Woolsey coughed. "We are all aware that the hosts are innocent, of course. And, certainly, if a member of the Dubai royal family is host to a Goa'uld, then we must by all means attempt to preserve the host's life."

"So, no poison," Rodney interpreted. John looked around the table, meeting everyone's eyes. Rodney nodded. They'd killed Goa'uld in their hosts before; for a long time, it had been the only way. Now the Tok'ra had their machine to suck the snake out of a host, it was different. Sometimes killing them was still the only way, but now, knowing there was another option, it always felt frustrating and tragic. What felt good was seeing a snake die on the floor under a Tok'ra's boot and knowing the host got their body back.

"But you haven't talked to the Tok'ra yet?" Ronon asked.

Woolsey nodded. "You are astute as ever, Mr. Dex. Hopefully that will be happening later this morning. Until I know more, I'm afraid I can only request you proceed with undercover reconnaissance first, and await further instructions. Please try not to cause any international incidents."

  


* * *

  


Once John had tipped the bellhop, Ronon opened the French doors out onto the wide balcony. It was a dizzying drop twenty-one stories to the artificial island below; beyond that, stunning blue waters of the Persian Gulf—or Arabian Gulf as they called it here—and pale red sand deserts beyond the city. Dubai itself was a porcupine of half-built skyscrapers, with cranes clinging at impossible angles like enormous stick insects and naked I-beams jutting out where glittering facades would eventually be.

Rodney broke out the bug detectors and together the four of them cased every inlaid, gilt, and silk-upholstered inch of their suite, down to the closets and mini-bars. "Hmm, it's clean," Rodney said, collecting the scanners from the others. "Would it be tacky to say I'm surprised?"

"Yes," answered Teyla with a sly smile as she handed hers over.

Ronon snorted. "The job getting into the Russian Stargate Program ruined you, McKay."

"What? There were new bugs every single time we turned our backs. I was beginning to worry they'd invented their own Replicator."

Rodney saw John freeze for a second, and then let out a breath. "Yeah, don't even joke about that."

"Sorry, sorry, bad choice of words." Rodney clicked his kit of electronics equipment shut and locked it.

"Ronon, are we sharing?" Teyla asked.

"Sure." Ronon threw some bags over one shoulder and moved them into one bedroom. Rodney shot John a shy smile and took his own luggage into the other. John followed, crowding against him as they hung up their suits, and Rodney happily stole kisses—John hadn't let them touch all day—until they heard Ronon and Teyla arguing over restaurants outside their door. John pulled away, and Rodney was really going to have to get him to work on that, because if Teyla and Ronon weren't safe, then who was?

But he trailed John out into the living room, where Ronon was saying, "Hey, we could charter a yacht, go out on the Gulf."

And, no. Rodney was not going out on a yacht in the Persian—or Arabian—Gulf in ninety-eight degree heat. "Or we could stay in the nice, cool air-conditioning," he said. "So, lunch? Shall we explore what our ridiculously luxurious accommodations have to offer?"

Ronon tucked his insane space gun into the back of his belt; he'd brought it back from a long ago joint-mission with SG-1 and used it any time they were green-lighted for zats. "Or maybe you'd like us to hare off to the Bridge Suite right now and shoot us a Goa'uld? You can't carry that openly! At least put a coat on."

Ronon grinned with his teeth first, but it reached his eyes when Teyla and John started laughing.

"I could eat," John admitted.

Teyla nodded. "And nap. There is at least one nightclub with a VIP lounge. We should make use of it tonight."

John groaned. "I hate dancing."

Rodney made a rude noise; he knew exactly what John looked like on the dance floor. Like Rodney, John was decent at classic ballroom, but he looked ridiculous on the club scene. "Yeah, you can keep me company on a couch while we—"

"Get drunk?" John suggested.

"—watch the people with actual physical grace," Rodney finished, gesturing at Teyla and Ronon.

"We will get you both to dance," Teyla said, eyes glinting.

"Only if you want to deal with my hangover in the morning." John found his card key to the room and slipped it into a pocket. "Are we ready?"

"No. Did you see this place has seventeen different restaurants and bars?" Ronon said, holding up a booklet. "Here, pick something," he said to Teyla and vanished into their bedroom.

"Oooh," said Rodney. "How long do you think we can stay? We can drag this out for at least a week or two, right?"

"Hey," John said sarcastically, "we could even buy a helicopter and fly a search grid across the desert until we hit on a ha'tak."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Very funny, Colonel."

"It would take months," John answered pointedly.

"I know." Rodney sighed. "I called Novak this morning. She's working on a sensor tweak from orbit. If there are any ships parked out there, they'll be messing with the drifts of the sand dunes, and the new algorithm should notice them."

"What if it is buried under them?" Teyla asked.

Rodney shrugged. "Power emanations, heat retention of the hull, magnetism, density. Any big blank spots where ordinary data should be. They would find a solution faster if I were up there with them, of course, but Novak is fairly smart and Hermiod has the collective knowledge of the Asgard—assuming he'll deem this a worthy enough cause to use it."

Teyla sighed. "We shall hope."

"Hell," John said, "maybe there's nothing to find. Maybe he's been stranded here for five thousand years."

Ronon reappeared wearing a linen jacket and a different shirt. Rodney had no doubt the gun was concealed somewhere. "Come on. Lunch and recon."

Rodney's stomach growled. "Seventeen restaurants and bars," he repeated, musing happily. Laughing, John guided him out the door with a hand on his back, and Rodney wished he could kiss him right there in the hallway.

  


* * *

  


Teyla spent a good part of that night using her body to draw as much attention to herself and John as possible, while Ronon and Rodney wandered from bar to bar, crisscrossing the resort and looking for obvious signs of Goa'uld activity. It was difficult to discern what might indicate Goa'uld hedonism, as opposed to the merely human variety.

The following morning, with a black abaya pulled on over her clothes and a hijab pinned over her hair, Teyla wondered at the transformation. She had become virtually invisible, an anonymous woman indistinct from crowds of others dressed in the same manner. It was in some ways incredibly liberating; disguised as she was, she could wander the corridors as free as a shadow and no man would dare approach her. For her present work, it was perfect.

The Bridge Suite was enormous, with more than three thousand square feet spanning the full width of the building on two stories. Conveniently, the butler's entry was located on the far end of the same hall as those to the Royal and Presidential Suites, so Teyla did not have to go far.

Rodney's counterfeit keycard swiped green, and the door opened on an anteroom to the kitchen, which was thankfully empty at five-thirty a.m. on a Tuesday. Her heart was racing, but she measured her breathing, steadied her nerves, and listened.

After a handful of minutes, Teyla decided she was likely the only person awake. She pulled back her left sleeve and revealed the strip of audiovisual transceivers Rodney had prepared. The sound-only units were half the size of a grain of rice; the video transmitters were the size of small pearls. Each had both a sharp micro-tack and an adhesive dot to hold it in place. Quickly, she withdrew an audio bug from the panel and adhered it under the sill of a cabinet because servants would talk, she knew, when loyal companions would not.

Then she moved into the suite itself, rapidly placing bugs in the empty breakfast area, long dining table, and office. After that, she came to a large living area where four naked people lay sleeping: two were women but none bore the marks of the Jaffa. The room smelled of hashish, and an assortment of pipes and pill bottles lay scattered on the coffee table. Teyla tucked a bug into a light fixture and moved on.

Next, she entered a dark media room. The door stood slightly ajar and most of what she could see was dark leather couches. She could hear at least two people snoring. In the far right corner, a narrow window let some dim light through a shade. A group of young women slept naked together on a large pile of pillows on the floor. Other bodies occupied the sofas. The few foreheads she could see were tattoo-free. Teyla pressed a bug into the ornate edge of a picture frame and slipped out the door.

She came to a bathroom next and placed a video bug in a piece of woven willow sculpture near the sink. Goa'uld were vain of their host bodies. They tended to preen. With any luck, their target would flash his eyes in the mirror, and they would have positive identification.

That was all for the first floor. A marble staircase led to a lushly carpeted marble den. A bar, dining table, and kitchen lined the far side of the room. More couches and pillows faced a large television. Another nude young woman occupied one of the sofas. Liquor bottles littered the room, and she appeared to be passed out cold. Again, there were no Jaffa markings.

From where she stood, Teyla could see three partially open doors: a tiled entrance she suspected was a bathroom and two bedrooms with different carpets. A fourth door stood closed. A low murmur came from somewhere, and then from beyond the closed door, Teyla heard a tenor voice say, "Lord Min, sir, your bath is ready and I have called for breakfast. Shall I wake Lord Anat?"

There was a guttural sound and then a deep baritone, "No, not if you value your life. You may come and wash me."

"Thank you, my lord. It will be my pleasure."

Teyla's mind raced; she had spent her last three years on Earth devouring information on many Earth cultures, studying first the ways the Goa'uld had lived and thrived here. The religious wars in the Middle East had taught her Arabic names and Forbes magazine had taught her the names of the clientele who would spend $25,000 per night on a hotel suite. She was sure there were no billionaire sheiks named Anat or Min. Anat, in fact, was a goddess very similar to Hathor...who was a Goa'uld.

Something rustled in one of the other bedrooms, as if someone were turning over in bed. Teyla rushed to tap a final bug into a wall sconce with a view of the stairs. She took a slow, silent breath, placing a mental picture of the first floor's layout against her present surroundings, and then nudged through the bathroom door. In the vestibule, she found another door to the right. She opened it as quietly as she could and, instead of the expected linen closet, discovered a cleaning pantry and access to the butler's stairs. Perfect. Pulling the door shut, she noticed the sleeve of her abaya was still tugged back to display the mostly empty bug card. She flipped it back down and raced down the tight spiral staircase on her toes.

After a minute of standing there listening, restoring her breathing to something somewhat less frantic, she pulled the door open. She was back in the butler's anteroom where she had first entered the suite. No one was in the kitchen and she heard no other sound. Gently, she shut the door to the stairwell and listened at the exterior hall door. If the attendant to Min had called for breakfast, an Atlantis chef might be arriving at any moment.

Teyla smoothed her hijab and double-checked her sleeve's secret contents were concealed. On impulse, she repinned part of the black scarf around her neck to form a veil over her face. It was an uncommon style among Emirati women, but it would prevent her being identified.

With deliberate nonchalance, she slipped out into the empty hall, and for a moment she believed all was well. Then the elevator midway along the corridor opened and disgorged two women dressed in kitchen whites. Each carried two large woven sacks of groceries, and, as Teyla was at the dead end of the hall, there was little doubt where she had come from. She had no choice but to pass them, determinedly not meeting their eyes. Perhaps, she hoped, they would assume she was a Bridge Suite party attendee using Islamic dress to protect her privacy.

Returning directly home after an operation such as this was a novice mistake, and she knew better. The elevator deposited her on the ground floor, and from there, she strolled out to the island's south beach to watch the sun rise over the dolphin bay. It was lovely, cool, and the sand crunched satisfyingly under her shoes. She wondered if the dolphins were asleep at this hour, or if, indeed, they required sleep. Earth zoology was not one of her areas of study, although the variety of animals on this planet never ceased to amaze her. Perhaps she would sign them up to swim with the porpoises, as the experience came included with their rooms. She had never done such a thing, and it seemed a shame to waste the opportunity.

She allowed herself to walk from one end of the beach to the other, not quite a full mile, before losing herself in an early breakfast crowd outside one of the resort's restaurants, where she ducked into a restroom and removed her over-garments. The abaya and hijab folded neatly into the cloth purse she wore over her black pants and ruched blue top, and after she'd shaken out her ponytail, she looked perfectly fresh and quite like a Western tourist who had missed her companions at breakfast.

Ten minutes later, she was back in her own suite, meeting Rodney's wide smile and accepting an all-too-welcome mug of coffee.

"It's a pleasure to watch you work," he said, pointing at his pair of laptops.

She hummed into her cup, savoring. "Anything yet?"

He laughed. "Lots of naked people?"

She took a bite of an oversized blueberry muffin from the basket on the table. "Oh, these are delicious!" She was always famished after these sorts of jobs. The walk on the beach had helped calm her nerves, but what she had really needed was breakfast.

John and Ronon joined them at the table then, not at all bleary. They'd all been up with her, marking her progress. "Okay," John began. Then he looked at her demolishing a second muffin. "Right, sorry." He got up and ordered a small feast from room service. Then he turned back to her. "Okay, so talk us through it."

"We have at least two targets," she said. "As I recall from my studies, Anat and Min were Egyptian gods of—"

"Whoa," said Rodney.

"—sex," said Teyla.

"That is one giant penis," Rodney said, turning one laptop around for Ronon and John to see the Egyptian temple painting he had found.

"I do not remember anything else about them historically, as I was focusing my attention on known Goa'uld."

"Same here," said Ronon. "Did you manage to get a look at them?"

"No, the bedroom door was shut. Min's voice was deep; I could not guess his apparent age." Teyla paused in thought. "The attendant referred to Anat as a 'lord', too. Sometimes Goa'uld in female hosts preferred the term 'lord', as well."

"Or it could be using a male body," said Rodney. "In this part of the world, a Goa'uld in a female host might have a harder time gaining power. If it's as simple as snaking someone else..." he trailed off.

"That is also possible," Teyla agreed. "Anat could be in anyone."

John said, "All right, today we take turns on stakeout, we research who we're dealing with, and we try to get ourselves invited to a party."

"And Rodney has his date with Woolsey's man in black," Ronon added.

"It isn't a date! It's a meeting!" Rodney flailed.

Ronon grinned at John. "Should I go with? He might need a chaperone."

John blushed, but Rodney did not see it. "You have to be kidding me," Rodney said, then he looked up at Ronon's face. "Oh, you jerk. Of course you're kidding me. Besides, Woolsey's guy is just taking me on a tour of the city's most garish eyesores, with lunch in the old Bastakia quarter. It'll be fine."

Rodney waved away all concern and went back to staring at improbable ancient Egyptian penis art. He looked up over the top of his screen, met John's gaze, and smiled, soft and happy. Teyla caught John's surreptitious glances at herself and Ronon and the way John's fingers clenched, as if he were preventing himself from reaching out to Rodney. Rising, she squeezed his shoulder once, and then went to put her disguise away.

  


* * *

  


At first, the audio and video they got from Teyla's bugs was as good as getting free porn, but Rodney quickly bored of it. He didn't speak Arabic, and John's was rusty on a good day, so, thanks to the stargate's bizarre translation protocol, Teyla and Ronon had to decipher all the audio that wasn't in English, which was about half of it.

Mostly, people came and went and while a number of men seemed to hold themselves with the bearing of a god, or a sheik, Rodney didn't see anyone be the focus of a roomful of obeisances or anything. A lot of people went into a couple of the upstairs bedrooms, though, and the living area at the top of the stairs was the scene of most every type of sex Rodney imagined people could have without needing specialized equipment. But it was all unhurried, even lazy, and the men and women seemed only vaguely interested in food when platters were laid on the table, and not at all interested in partaking of the resort's actual guest amenities, such as the water park and nightclub.

"Having fun?" John asked when he reappeared from wherever he'd gone. He was wet, so Rodney guessed it was the giant water slide.

"They're like zombies," Rodney said. "It isn't even hot; it's just bodies killing time by having sex, as if nothing matters. They fuck and sleep, and occasionally someone tells them to eat."

"That's depressing. How many are there now?"

"I don't know. People go in and out of the bedrooms rather frequently, and these feeds don't have great resolution. It's hard to tell all these nearly identical nubile young men and women apart." John raised a doubtful eyebrow and looked at the screen. Rodney huffed. "Look: olive skin, black hair, dark eyes, slim build. That describes two thirds of them right there."

"True," murmured John, watching a trio of young men performing mutual blowjobs.

Rodney sighed. "I don't miss being that age, but I miss the refractory period."

John laughed and surprised Rodney by kissing the side of his head. "I could start something here, but the hotel people are supposed to be coming up in half an hour to serve tea, like, in the British sense, I think."

"Oh, food," Rodney said dreamily. "I hope they have those little sandwiches."

John's smile was fond, and Rodney was so very tempted to drag John off for a quickie, but no, he wanted to take time and savor. "Just remember to put the porn away when they show up," John said. "Especially if it's guy on guy. It's a ten-year jail term, you know, to get caught being gay here by someone. That could fuck up their lives a lot."

Rodney eyed the screens. "You mean fuck up their life on top of the fuck-anything-that-moves Goa'uld mind control?"

John squeezed his shoulder and murmured, "I would take the edge off for you, if we were going to have some time to ourselves."

Rodney shut his eyes, then glanced at the clock. "After tea?" John traced a finger down Rodney's neck, and he pressed a hand over it, stopping the motion. "Really not helping. Thank you, but that really just compounds the frustration. Watching all these people screwing endlessly for no real reason—" He let go John's hand and pointed at the screen. "I mean, no matter how much lube you use, at some point that has to start to chafe, right?"

John winced, staring at the writhing bodies. "Yeah, you'd think." Rodney got a look at the tightness of John's pants, then, and felt a little better. At least he wasn't suffering alone.

  


* * *

  


The next day Woolsey called during breakfast, and John put him on speakerphone so they could listen and eat. "First, I wanted to tell you that SG-1 is offworld, so we've sent your request for information on Anat and Min to the anthropology staff."

Rodney sighed. "Thanks, I've already googled them. We don't need to know what their cults were like. We need to know if the Tok'ra have heard of them."

"I've passed that request along, as well," Woolsey said impatiently. "Now, I wanted to let you all know that we've arranged for the four of you to tour the Royal Palace of Dubai today. You'll be introduced to His Highness Sheik Mohammad and other members of the royal household."

"Wait, what?" Rodney sloshed his coffee over the table, waving with his mug. "What is the point of this? Do you want us to rip off their headdresses and look for Jaffa tattoos? Or did you want us to check all their stomachs for prim'ta pouches?"

"Rodney, take a breath," John said, pushing the full carafe toward him. "Mr. Woolsey, if there are Goa'uld in the royal family, they're hardly going to give themselves away to us."

"Didn't I just say that?" Rodney snapped, refilling his cup.

"Please understand, Dr. McKay," Woolsey said sternly, "that the forcible removal of the emir's ghutra to examine his forehead would provoke a diplomatic incident that not even the president could assuage. Be reasonable." Rodney muttered something under his breath and Woolsey continued through the phone, "Now, Colonel Sheppard, we know the Goa'uld tend to respond to temptation and anger with the characteristic eye flash. We believe you may be able to elicit this response with certain, ah, conversational gambits, if you will."

"Really," John said, hackles rising.

"Your intimate knowledge of the utilities industry via your family's business and your first-hand experience of US military policy in the Middle East could, ah, get a rise, as it were."

John groaned inwardly and rubbed his eyes. Supercilious, micromanaging ass. He took a breath. "You know, I don't even have a stake in the company anymore. I haven't paid attention to any of that stuff in years."

Woolsey's voice came back a crisp correction. "Actually, you do own a stake. Your brother is the majority shareholder, but you continue to retain a rather large block of stock."

John froze. He'd gotten rid of it years ago...unless maybe there was more left in trust, maybe from his mom's estate. "Well, I sure as hell hope Dave's been paying the taxes on it, because that's news to me." Maybe it had gotten lost in the maze of duty stations and reverted to Dave's guardianship. Fuck. This was crap he didn't need. He tried to shake it off. There was a silence on the line and John focused hard on his omelet instead of looking around the table. It was too freaking early to deal with anyone's sympathy.

Then Woolsey continued. "Ah. Well, doubtless your brother's accountant is on top of the situation. Regardless, the fundamentals of the industry remain the same as ever, and the provision of electricity, fresh water, and sewage treatment services is a perpetual matter of concern for the Emirate and for all the Gulf states. It is an 'in', as it were. Please use it."

"To make their eyes flash," John said through gritted teeth.

"Yes," Woolsey answered, as if he didn't hear how completely stupid that sounded.

The rest of the team was looking at him across the half-eaten breakfast spread. John sighed. "Yes, sir." John was only glad Woolsey couldn't see his face through the phone.

  


* * *

  


They pulled up two hours later, with John driving and all of them feeling desperately, nakedly unarmed. The palace looked like some giant old museum John had been dragged through during one of his mother's 'culture tours' of Europe. She'd loved those trips, and he still felt sort of guilty for how much he'd hated them, but how many rooms covered in gold leaf could you expect a twelve-year-old boy to care about? But John plastered on a fake smile and chatted amiably with some middle-aged men in white robes, politely drinking very small cups of very strong coffee as they tried to figure out why the state department had elbowed John and the team into their busy schedule.

Ronon was trailing Rodney, who was lecturing some people on desalinization technology while they tried to show him paintings of Dubai through the twentieth century—or that's what it had sounded like, John wasn't sure, other than that it was the kind of thing that would bore Rodney into fits of offensive behavior. Hopefully, Ronon would clap a hand over Rodney's mouth if he got too worked up.

Teyla was off talking to some women in a part of the palace where men weren't allowed, and John remembered he needed to play up the contentiousness to work Woolsey's plan. Gulping another tiny cup of coffee, John dialed up his inner asshole and started talking at the sheik. He started with the trouble US military advisers had training undereducated backwater foreign troops. Then he put his elbows on his knees and said, conspiratorially, how much it had to suck to try to stand an army any self-respecting country wouldn't laugh their ass off at when your country was the size of the UAE. Then he leaned back, almost crossed his legs—but remembered at the last minute not to lift his feet at his hosts, since that would be pushing it too far—and reminisced fondly about how awesome it was to run hydroelectric plants in a region filthy with large rivers and lush green forests. Then, because everyone's eyes were staying a perfectly human dark brown, he said, "It sure is a shame how all the raw sewage getting dumped into the Gulf is ruining a potentially priceless tourist attraction."

By the end they were seething, but nobody's eyes had flashed gold and no one had boomed, "Be silent before your god, you impudent worm," or whatever the line from Dr. Jackson's reports had been. Awesome.

Thankfully, Teyla reappeared with Rodney and Ronon in tow, just as John was thinking they were going to throw him out—maybe even politely but firmly deport his ass right out of the country. She looked crisp and professional next to the rest of them. John wouldn't have minded getting to go charm some ladies while Teyla dealt with the political heavy hitters.

On the way to the portico where John had left their SUV, he said, "Well?"

Rodney ditched his suit coat in the day's building heat. "Yeah, no dice. Perfectly nice people, not doing near enough with their infrastructure, wasting resources building Disneyland with no sustainable way to fuel or water it. But, you know, they'll be fine once they finish the desalinization and wind farm networks they're building."

Settling in the passenger seat, Teyla took a small bug-jamming device from a pocket and balanced it on the center console. "Just in case," she said. She looked at each of them and asked, "I see that none of you queried our hosts about what the crčme de la crčme do for fun at Atlantis?" She made a face at their blank looks. "Remember the informant that began all this was a royal cousin. This was his home."

"But Woolsey—" Rodney started.

"—is a bureaucrat," Teyla finished. "He does not adapt his intentions to real-world circumstances."

"What did you learn?" asked John before Rodney could launch into a full-blown rant.

"Some of the women have gone to the parties. Once each, I believe, as it is the sort of grave depravity that Muslim women are meant to be protected from at all costs."

"Except when the men decide to make them go?" Ronon asked from the seat behind John.

"Perhaps. Those I spoke with expressed curiosity at the opportunity to taste the forbidden, and not coercion, but I do not know their true experiences. Three women corroborated our tentative intelligence. There seem to be two Goa'uld, both using male hosts. They exert complete mental control, they told me, so that one does not even wish to resist their commands. One desires only to please the lords."

"That could get ugly," John said.

Teyla shrugged. "I rather received the impression that these Goa'uld are sensualists instead of sadists. The women told me…well, these Goa'uld seem to delight in inflicting pleasure instead of pain."

"Hmm," said Rodney. "That's good, I guess?"

"Pain would get them noticed," Ronon said.

"And a sex scandal wouldn't?" Rodney asked, incredulous.

"I meant marks. Someone would ask about bruises and welts. People would start to talk."

"Ah, that's true," Rodney agreed. "If they're reenacting Caligula up there every night, someone would find out. They can't mind control everybody, can they?"

"They did murder the guy who talked," John reminded them.

Ronon made a dismissive noise. "Because he tried to expose their little kingdom. Makes me wonder how strong their mind control stuff is. Maybe he didn't get a full dose, or maybe it wears off?"

John steered the SUV onto the causeway across to the hotel. "And we're still thinking they don't have any Jaffa, right?"

"Correct," Teyla answered. "I inquired after exotic forehead markings and aquariums full of snakes—"

"You really just worked that into conversation?" said Rodney in disbelief.

She ignored him. "They had no idea what I was talking about, although I can report that the zoo in Al Ain is highly recommended if we want to take an extra day." She grinned. "The big cats and the reptile house are said to be particularly impressive."

"Awesome," John said with a laugh. Not that he had any tolerance for snakes anymore, but he was always impressed with how Teyla could make crazy questions sound perfectly normal. Or normal enough.

"If they don't have any Jaffa, they probably don't have a spaceship, either," Rodney mused, sounding disappointed.

"Which means probably no ring device, so they can't get away." Ronon's voice was low and pleased.

"Those are some big ifs." John pulled the truck into the valet drive. "Could be they're just here to party until they get bored, and then they'll go back to wherever their secret hideout is. I mean, realistically speaking, how long can an orgy last?"

"Have you not been watching the video?" Rodney said.

Ronon snorted. "They're sex gods, Sheppard. Or, they think they are."

"They have power, opulence, and pleasure," Teyla said. "Goa'uld desires are not complicated."

Rodney sighed, opening his door. "True. And for some reason, they never get bored."

  


* * *

  


Ronon took point through the doors to one of the resort's two swimming pools. There were maybe thirty Earth people of different cultures swimming or lounging around, a handful of kids, half a dozen wait staff and...towel-holders? He'd have to ask Sheppard if that's what they were. A few yards behind him, he could hear Sheppard and Teyla chattering lightly about something intentionally inane. Ronon circled to the far side of the pool, which was designed like a multi-level pond and was totally out of place a hundred feet from the beach. He tossed his sunglasses onto a lounge-chair, kicked off his sandals, and dove into the deep end. After swimming a couple of laps, Ronon switched to a showy backstroke that let him gauge how much attention he was drawing. A fair bit. Good.

Five laps later, he saw Sheppard and Teyla settling themselves adjacent to his chair and swam up to the edge. It was shallow enough there for him to kneel on the bottom and rest his arms on the ledge. "Took you long enough," he called.

"Show off," Sheppard answered.

"We were admiring the architecture," Teyla said, unpacking sunscreen and an e-reader.

"Come swim." Ronon tried to make it sound inviting, to make sure he had the attention of everyone in the area. The idea of trying to make himself appealing to a Goa'uld or its procurers made his stomach turn, and yet getting themselves noticed and invited in was pretty much the only strategy they had.

Sheppard was talking to a waiter that had come out of nowhere. "Beer for me and him. Teyla, what do you feel like?"

"Iced tea," she said, smiling, "No lemon, please."

Ronon smirked at her from the pool, and she made a face back. If there was any chance any of them might need to kiss McKay in the course of a mission, it was safer not to risk it.

"It _would_ suck to accidentally kill him," Sheppard said when the waiter had gone.

"And he would, as he says, never forgive us," said Teyla. She pulled a handful of glossy brochures out of her enormous straw beach bag, which Ronon knew also held at least one zat. "Here."

Sheppard started flipping through them. "Really?"

"We need to fill the time in case Rodney has more meetings, unless you plan to spend all your time in the water park."

"Is there deep sea diving?" Ronon asked. Then he flipped over in the water and did a handstand. When he came up, Sheppard and Teyla were both staring at him. They weren't the only ones.

Sheppard choked. "Those swim trunks had better not get us arrested, man."

Ronon looked down and hiked his trunks up half an inch. They were black, square Army trunks that felt like a second skin, but next to Sheppard's knee-length board shorts, he was practically naked. "They could be rainbow striped micro-briefs," he said, remembering some of the options he'd passed by.

Teyla coughed. "That is true." She stood up, dropped her flimsy cover-up, and made sure everyone got an eyeful of her green and white bikini. "I believe I will swim."

She dove in, and Ronon spent a while playing tag with her in the deep end until Sheppard decided to get in on the action. Later, drinks they didn't order arrived, followed by an Emirati dressed in casual wear Ronon recognized from a men's sex and clothes magazine he'd thumbed through on the flight over the ocean. The guy was unarmed, in shape but not a fighter, in his early thirties, maybe, and had a look of privilege around the eyes. Ronon relaxed a little, lay back and pretended to doze behind his sunglasses.

Sheppard half-rose from his sun-drenched sprawl and shook the guy's hand. Teyla looked on in polite interest but didn't engage while Sheppard made with the pleasantries. He introduced himself as Ragheb, saying, "We noticed you and your companions are staying in one of the royal suites. Very luxurious, yes? So much larger than the rooms that share a wall with the aquarium." He paused, taking in the three of them. "My friends and I are having a party, a sort of VIP-only affair, yes? Perhaps Sayyed John and his friends would like to come tonight?"

Sheppard made the right noises, and somehow, "Yeah, I love a good party," came out of his mouth sounding promisingly dirty instead of imbecilic. A quiet noise from Teyla drew Sheppard's attention, and she fingered the translucent fabric of her cover-up. "Oh, right," he said. "The dress code here is all—" He waved a hand. "—different, you know? Especially for women. What's appropriate for this thing?"

"Oh," Ragheb laughed, "anything you like. As long as we're here in Atlantis, we're quite westernized." He raked his gaze over Teyla's body. "Decadent, even."

"Got it," Sheppard said, stroking the side of a finger down Teyla's forearm.

Ragheb cleared his throat and gave Ronon the split-second version of the same look he had just given Teyla. "Yes. I think, yes." He then shook himself slightly, maybe noticing how many lines he was crossing, Ronon couldn't guess. Then he explained how to access the Bridge Suite at the top of the giant arch between the hotel's two wings and finally went away.

"You're in," Ronon said. He stretched out a long arm and touched Teyla's wrist.

She gave him a wry smile. "You do not say 'we'."

"I'll be backup," he answered with a shrug. "Besides, he could've sat down over here; he chose you two." And Ronon was glad for it. He'd seen too much mindless Goa'uld worship growing up. The thought of ending up in a harem freaked him the hell out. That way led only to getting snaked yourself.

"We need to check in with Rodney," Sheppard said, checking the time on his phone.

"He should be in the suite, unless he went to the spa for a massage. But we should nap and bathe," said Teyla. "This party will likely last all night."

"Bet it's already going," said Ronon. "Maybe it's always going."

Sheppard drained his bottle of beer and stood. "Probably so."

  


* * *

  


John paced back and forth in the bedroom he was sharing with Rodney, while Rodney was still installed at the enormous dinner table, staring at his bank of laptops and the extra monitors Woolsey's fake architect had sent over. It was only 9:30, still too early to head up to the party, but late enough to get the jitters about how things were going to go. John looked at his reflection in the mirror over the dresser. He'd dressed in black jeans and a black button-down shirt. He'd shaved when they returned from the pool, so he was sporting normal stubble now instead of full-on bristle. He'd brushed his teeth in case there was kissing. What did he need to do, besides calm down? Socks, shoes, right. He put his boots on.

When he looked up, Teyla was standing in the doorway. "Very Johnny Cash," she said, smiling at him.

John scratched his head, embarrassed. "Should I change? This isn't too casual, is it?" Teyla was wearing a white sequined halter dress with silver heels, and her hair was loose down her back. She'd had her nails done at the spa earlier, and they shimmered in the lamplight. "You look great," he added.

"Thank you." She raised a knowing eyebrow and crossed the room to sit next to him on the overstuffed sofa. "I, too, would rather be doing something involving explosives and destroying System Lords' ha'taks. Subterfuge such as this requires a great deal of energy."

"Yeah," John said, looking at the rug. "So, uh, can I ask—" he broke off, grasping for words. "I mean, in the event that they do try to make us have sex up there, would you prefer it to be with me or with someone you'll never have to see again?"

"Oh, John." She squeezed his arm and let out a slow breath. A long moment passed before she said, "We will hardly be given that choice. You know this. They are Goa'uld."

John let his head fall back against the couch. "Fuck. I know. I know. I just...you said they weren't sadists."

"But the nish'ta makes people desire things they would normally not. It is mind control, and therefore it is body control as well."

John scowled. "Great. So when I get raped tonight, I'm going to want it."

Teyla's jaw set and she forced him to meet her eyes. "Our mission is to eradicate the Goa'uld," she said firmly. "We must learn what we are up against. We must search the bedrooms for ring devices. We are here to do reconnaissance."

John laughed dryly. "In the middle of an orgy?"

Her face cracked into a smile. "With luck, they will be too preoccupied to notice."

He smirked, but his gaze slid back to the floor.

"Have you spoken to Rodney?" she asked softly.

John shrugged. "He said he'll cope, same as any mission. He knows where I want to be instead."

She squeezed his arm again. "Then let me ask you, would it be easier for you if it were me or someone you will never see again?"

John shut his eyes. He'd been asking himself the same thing for a couple of hours. "I don't know. If they can make me want anything, it doesn't matter, does it?"

"If they want to watch us together, we can give them a good show," she suggested mildly.

"And if they want to watch us with everyone?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Then it will be all the sweeter to kill them later. And better with the nish'ta in those circumstances than without it."

John shuddered.

Rodney came into the room then and stopped, staring at them. "Oh my god, stop freaking yourself out."

"Rodney—" John started.

"No, really, James Bond never complained. If your jaw gets any tighter, you're going to crack a molar," Rodney said, as Ronon came to rest in the doorway behind him. "Chill the fuck out, Colonel. I'll be watching every minute and I'll be able to send Ronon in with stunners blazing if things get dicey."

"The mission—"

"There will be no gang rape for justice, you freak! We'll find another way. Have you forgotten how ridiculously well armed we are? Trust me. Ronon and I will find another way."

"How far do you want to let it go?" Ronon asked, eyes focused on Teyla, but aiming the question at the room at large.

"I am content to pose as John's girlfriend," she answered. "We really must discover whether there are ring transports hidden in any of the rooms, and merely requesting a tour of the suite may not be enough to determine their presence."

"You?" Ronon asked John.

"No gang rape would be nice?" He frowned, eyes skating around the room, unable to settle.

"Short of that?" Ronon persisted. John sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face. "I'll come in and shoot them all any time you want, but—"

"We don't want to blow the whole operation." Rodney looked at his watch. "Also, we don't want to get caught executing a military operation in one of the most expensive luxury hotels in the world. Remember Woolsey said this thing is supposed to be covert!"

John glanced at the clock by the bed. It was five 'til ten. He stood up. "If we aren't being hurt, I'll cope."

Rodney put his hands up. "Wait! I didn't mean you should go in and let them do things to you that—"

John took Rodney's face in his hands and kissed him silent. Then he tried not to blush, too aware of Teyla and Ronon watching. John just didn't do public displays, not unless it was subterfuge or a cover for an away mission. He'd always been private about things like that, even when there wasn't any risk of getting caught; and maybe that was the crux of what was bugging him about this party? It wasn't the threat of sex itself. He could, if he had to, screw whomever he needed to for the sake of the mission—he'd done it in the past and it hadn't mattered. He just didn't want to do it with an audience.

"It'll be fine," John said. And he finally felt like it might be.

  


* * *

  


Being able to check surveillance before they left felt like sending a MALP through the gate, and John couldn't wait for them to wrap up this mess and get back to their regularly scheduled wormhole hijinks. Missions that kept them on Earth were just wrong.

Rodney estimated there were about a hundred people at the party. He bitched and moaned that someone had shifted one of the cameras, so his angles were all wrong now. Heaven forbid that someone dare to move the lamp Teyla had stuck it to. John and Teyla shared a fond look over Rodney's hunched shoulders.

"We've got your back," Ronon told them, handing them each a small chit holding a half-dozen micro transceivers. "For the rooms we can't see. Don't forget. We need to know your status."

"I have no pockets." Teyla patted her dress to demonstrate. Ronon smiled a toothy smile and produced a small silver and crystal comb from somewhere, transferred the six bugs to the underside of the jeweled edge, and arranged the comb to hold back a section of her hair. Then he guided Teyla's searching fingers to the nodes.

John took a breath. Flying combat missions hadn't been much more stressful than this. "Are we ready?" Teyla nodded. "Then let's go."

  


* * *

  


It was, for the first half hour, like any number of parties John had attended in his life. The booze and food was better quality than most, but there was a universal truth about stupid drunk people that transcended cultures. Also, there was a fair amount of drug use happening, as well as an apparently clothing optional dance floor. That's where John and Teyla finally found Ragheb. He was shirtless and swaying, with his head resting on the shoulder of the man grinding into his ass, hands stroking the torso of the young woman rocking herself to orgasm on Ragheb's thigh.

"I guess that's what he had planned for us," John said into Teyla's ear, turning so she could look without being seen.

She smiled and moved closer into his space. "Have we spent enough time mingling, do you think?"

"I guess?" He shrugged. From the nature of the small talk, it seemed like very few of the people here knew each other. That made it more like a singles bar than a party.

Teyla put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him a couple of steps toward the dancers. John saw, in his peripheral vision, armchairs and end tables covered in condom and lube packets. Women on SG teams had birth control implants, but John didn't want either of them catching anything from strangers.

"I'm really not drunk enough for this," he said, even though the music was too loud for anyone to hear him. He was, in fact, completely sober, and growing to regret it. But he let Teyla pull him to her and set up a slow rhythmic grind. He had to consciously stop himself from stepping into a stick-fighting routine with her. Instead, he focused on stroking her bare shoulders, on feeling her fingertips skate over his neck. When she pulled him down for a kiss, it felt almost natural, almost real, and the press of her breasts against his chest and the firm grip of her hands, and, Christ, the scent of her skin—he was hard for her, not because of the mission but for her.

And the look in her eyes—"Let us go upstairs," she said, and he knew that part was for the mission, but also he really wanted to go upstairs and fuck. She had him by the hand and was leading him toward the big marble staircase. It was guarded by a bouncer the size of Ronon but with another fifty pounds packed on. He gave them both a visual once-over and waved them up. No pat-down, and John tried not to notice. Paying too much attention to security always raised alarms. Instead, he followed Teyla up, admiring the lines of her shoulders, her lush ass, her muscular legs. He wanted to lick the backs of her thighs.

Maybe she felt his gaze, then, because she stopped in the middle of the stairs and turned to face him. She yanked him to her, the stair steps between evening their height, and kissed him hard. "Do not get distracted." She spoke directly into his face.

"I think it's started," he said. "I mean, you're hot as hell, but I've never actually wanted to nail you like this before." He stopped. "I actually said that out loud, didn't I?"

"My inhibitions are also reduced." She kissed him again, longer and wetter.

"So it's mutual?" he said, because he had to confirm. Also, her ass fit beautifully into his hands.

She smirked at him fondly. "Not on the stairs, John. Let us see what is up here." The mission, right. He kissed her lips and took her hand.

At the top of the stairs, a bouncer ran a metal detector wand over them, just as another had when they'd exited the elevator. There was porn playing on the TV in the living area and porn taking place from there all the way to the kitchen area. John wrapped an arm around Teyla's waist and pressed his erection against her. "Definitely in the air, or maybe the food and drink?" he said into her ear.

"We should have sex in every bed they have." She looked up at him, eyes wide and black, and nodded to the left. The door to Min's bedroom was open. John nodded. The haze of desire was getting thicker, but he was still clear on what they needed to do.

"Ah, you have found us," a deep voice said as they entered the room. John took a deep breath, in surprise, maybe. The man was indescribably beautiful. "Come," he said. There was a gold flash in the big dark eyes, and John was overwhelmed.

  


* * *

  


Twenty minutes later, John was thrusting into Teyla as Lord Anat fucked deep into his ass. It was exquisite. It was absolutely going to give Rodney a complex. He'd managed to stick a bug onto the side of an ornately carved mahogany bench when he'd taken his clothes and boots off. Teyla's hair comb was transmitting audio, but John didn't know if it was sending video, too. He wasn't even sure what the point was anymore. Lord Anat was amazing. The host was Arab, in his late thirties, maybe, not as tall as Ronon but with just as perfect a body, and John really, really wanted Lord Anat to have a good time. It felt—it was overwhelming to have his cock sliding into Teyla and Lord Anat filling him, God, both at once.

Teyla curled up to kiss him, hard, and the tight clench sent him over; his whole body was shaking with it and Lord Anat kept going, kept on, God.

"More," said a deep voice, a Goa'uld voice. Lord Min.

John opened his eyes. "My lord," he said automatically—fucking nish'ta, he could identify the impulse now, at least—to the tall African man who had stretched out on the bed beside them.

Lord Min pulled Teyla out from under John and up the bed by a couple of feet. "Lick her," he said. It was a command, John felt in his bones that it was a command, and yet John still wanted to. He wanted this desperately, even though it had been years since he'd gone down on a woman, and never with a cock up his ass at the same time. John met her eyes, her dark, alert eyes, and did.

"John," she said, and began petting his hair, and he knew it was going to be okay. At least between them it would be okay.

Lord Anat sped up and John licked faster, tasting his own come from Teyla's pussy. No condoms, he thought, not caring, and also not worrying because the Goa'uld symbiote would cure any disease the host might catch. As long as it was just Lord Anat and Lord Min. Teyla made a choked sound and John looked up her body to see Lord Min's impossibly long cock pushing into her mouth, maybe her throat.

"Make her come," one of them said, and John complied because he had to and hoped she wouldn't be angry at him later for making her enjoy this. In a minute, she was spasming around his fingers and her clit had retreated against her body to where he couldn't feel it. She was quaking and he kissed her inner thighs and her belly and held on tight to her writhing hips.

"That's it," he was saying—grunting, really, because Lord Anat was still going, hard and steady.

"Turn over," Lord Min ordered, pulling his cock back, and Teyla turned onto knees and elbows.

"Don't stop." Lord Anat pushed John's face forward, and John thought, _Oh. Oh,_ and imagined Rodney letting him do this, and then he wondered if he and Teyla would be okay after this after all. But she was swallowing Lord Min's cock and all John could do was lay kiss after kiss to her ass. There was more of the taste of his own come on her skin, and Lord Anat pulled out, spread more lube on John's hole, and pushed back in as deep as he could go. John's tongue likewise went into Teyla as deep as it could go.

"Yes, open her," someone said, and John did his best. A little later, Lord Anat was pulling Teyla back onto John's slippery cock while Lord Min moved under them. Teyla cried out when Lord Min's cock went into her, and John held her reflexively, gripping her belly with one hand and a breast with the other. He could feel Lord Min's cock inside her, both under his hand and against his cock through the thin skin between openings. He could feel Lord Min's cock rubbing his balls where John straddled his hips, and Lord Anat's sac slapping against them both as he kept on fucking. He wanted to make a Viagra joke but couldn't. Lord Anat the Goa'uld could exert complete control over his host body, and that apparently included fucking for as long as he wanted without orgasm. Or maybe he could come and still maintain his erection. John had no idea; he only knew he was being reamed.

Teyla was shaking through another orgasm, collapsing onto Lord Min's chest as he and John both continued to fuck her. "You okay, babe?" he asked.

She shuddered again, saying "So much, oh," before trailing into incoherence.

"Beautiful," said Lord Min, speeding up his thrusts.

She squirmed and made a noise of protest. "Too much now," she slurred, pressing a hand against Lord Min's chest.

John stopped thrusting, which made him all too aware of Lord Anat pushing endlessly in and in to him. "My lord," he said with effort. He wanted Lord Min to be happy. He also heard Teyla ask him to stop. She was still trembling with overstimulation.

Lord Min thrust three more times, until Teyla gritted out, "Please let me rest, my lord."

"Very well." He grunted and let her pull gingerly off both of their cocks. John watched her curl on her side, and then suddenly, shockingly, he was empty. He turned his head in confusion, and Lord Anat pushed him a few inches up Lord Min's body. "Yes," Lord Min said, and Lord Anat purred, "Just so," as John felt another thick dollop of lube get pushed into his hole.

John swallowed and ducked his head. Between his legs, he saw Lord Anat coating the dark head of Lord Min's cock with lube. Then a hand on John's hip tilted him forward, and then Lord Min was in him. Four hands moved him up and down, forward and back, at first slow and shallow and then slow and deep. God, so fucking deep.

"More," said Lord Anat in his ear, and John felt himself open, felt his body relax further than he knew it could. "Yes," he said, and oh shit. John felt Lord Anat press two wet fingers in alongside Lord Min's cock. He was completely sex-drunk, and how was this even happening?

"John," said Teyla, getting to her knees and, oh, her mouth on his was so good. "John," she said again, and held onto him, and reminded him who he was. Rodney was going to have kittens. Lord Anat's cock was back in him again.

"Fuck, fuck." John couldn't think.

"Take us," Lord Anat said into the back of John's neck, and oh, that felt good.

"Anat," Lord Min said in his Goa'uld voice. Anat rolled his hips in reply. John keened between them, and they began lifting him bodily and sliding him up and down on their cocks together.

He came at least twice, but his brain checked out for a while somewhere in the middle. At the end, he was sandwiched between them, Anat and Min kissing over his shoulder, fucking into him with abandon. They came in him at the same time, and then they got up and went somewhere else.

A young man in his early twenties arrived with washcloths and glasses of water, then, and John was aware of him cleaning and examining his ass and applying some kind of cool, numbing ointment. "For inflammation only," he said. "There is no bleeding."

John looked to Teyla for confirmation before he could remember to be embarrassed. Then he was vaguely surprised that he was so unfazed by some random, completely naked kid walking in and putting medicinal goop in his rectum. Teyla just nodded. "All is well," she said, apparently riding the unfazable train right there with him.

John took a glass of water and drank gratefully. "I'm John, this is Teyla." John figured his name was the least he could offer.

The kid smiled brightly. "My name is Jawad."

"Thank you for your assistance. Please excuse me," Teyla said, squeezed John's arm, and then stood and padded off to the bathroom.

John drained the rest of the water glass. "So, this happens often?" He lay back against a pillow and tested his muscles. He wasn't going to be able to sit comfortably for at least a few days.

"Parties like this occur weekly."

John scratched his belly and Jawad began scrubbing at it with another wet washcloth. John's cock jerked painfully. "Fuck. It's way too soon for my body to want that again."

Jawad smiled sympathetically. "It is always like that here. We crave long past what our bodies may endure."

"They do you like this?" John asked, holding up two fingers.

"Oh, yes." Jawad was holding John's balls in the wet washcloth, rubbing gently. Then, without a thought, he and Jawad were kissing. "It is the greatest honor to be a feast unto them both."

"Yes," John agreed, wanting to taste more of Jawad's mouth, thinking he understood now how the orgies went on forever. He never wanted this to stop. Jawad's erection was rubbing against his hip. He took it in his hand and stroked, and as he did so he realized he could think and fuck at the same time again. He wet his hands. "Have they been here long?"

Jawad moaned. "Oh, yes."

John focused on stroking, swiveling his wrist the way he liked. So fucking hot. "Long like millennia?"

Jawad's eyes shot open. "You know what the lords are?"

"Yup." John kissed him again. "I'm just not sure how long they've been around."

"Longer than civilization," Jawad mumbled. "Oh, please, like that."

Over Jawad's shoulder, John saw Teyla exit the bathroom. She pointed toward the door and signaled that she was going to do a perimeter sweep. That meant he had about ten minutes to kill before he needed to be able to go after her in case she got into trouble. Part of John really wanted a nap, but he concentrated on giving this kid a really good hand-job. "That's it," he said, coaxing Jawad up onto his knees over John, so he had more room to work. Jawad made a pleased noise. "You watched us," said John, trying to find a way to get Jawad talking about the Goa'uld again without risking his cover.

"Of course," Jawad said. "I'm here to assist."

John shook his head. He didn't want to try to wrap his mind around that. Instead he found himself admitting something else he couldn't grasp. "I can't believe I took them both."

"It is their power to make our bodies—do more—than we believe," he gasped, "possible."

John laughed and stroked him faster. "You got that right. Are they going to stay, do you think?"

Jawad shuddered hard, thrusting into John's hands. "Yes. Oh, please more."

"That's right. Come on."

Jawad did, all over him, and John gave him a couple of minutes, sprawling naked together, before finding one of the now-clammy washcloths and cleaning them both up.

"Thank you," Jawad said.

John smiled. "That was fun."

Jawad smiled back dazedly. "Yes. Lord Anat and Lord Min were generous in allowing me to enjoy you."

John lost his smile. He agreed, on one hand; they were very generous, yes. And also, the Goa'uld had finished and gone on to someone else, leaving John free to have more sex with whomever he felt like; there was no allowing there, was there? He settled on kissing Jawad again. "They are staying, right?" he asked hopefully, and his eagerness for a yes answer was completely unfeigned. God help him, he wanted them again. As soon as his body could swing it.

"Yes, the last of their possessions from their penthouse at the Burj arrived this week. Atlantis is much more suitable." His voice was getting muzzy and his eyes were drifting shut.

"Sleep for a while," John suggested, and gingerly got to his feet. He took the soiled washcloths to the bathroom, which was enormous. There was a huge square shower, a whirlpool tub, a toilet and bidet, two sinks and a makeup vanity, and a giant walk-in closet. John washed off any remaining bodily fluids and went back to the bedside table for the tube of ointment Jawad had brought him. It helped a lot, and he wondered what was in it. If they were double-fucking people daily, they were probably burning through a ton of the stuff. And, possibly, people.

Teyla. Damn it. John had forgotten and she was six minutes past her time limit. He debated clothes, but everyone else was naked. Teyla had gone through the door naked. It was fine. He strolled out in search of her. There were twenty people fucking in the open area now, and the scent of it was intoxicating, probably literally, but he was on a mission. Teyla. He entered the nearest bedroom. Six people on the bed and more on the floor, none Teyla. Another bedroom: Lord Min sucking someone's cock while fucking a woman in the ass. Lord Anat was fucking her face. John had to look carefully to make sure it wasn't Teyla. The skin tone was too dark, the hair was too blond. They didn't seem at all aware of his presence, so he slipped into the bathroom and then the large closet. This one was full of the kinds of artifacts Dr. Jackson would go nuts for, but no Teyla. John wondered idly where his pants were; he should be planting bugs. He pasted a confused look on his face, in case he was noticed, and walked out again. No one even glanced at him.

He went through the kitchen area and the upstairs pantry on his way around to the small bathroom and other bedroom. People were fucking on the countertops. A woman on a table was covered in several kinds of dessert, and three men and a woman had their mouths all over her. None of them was Teyla.

He found her in the last bedroom, being fucked by Ragheb, who was thankfully facing away from the door when John came in. The other people in the room were all either asleep, giving head, or otherwise occupied. Teyla signaled John to check the bathroom, and so after making sure she wasn't being hurt, he did. The counter was a mess of lube and condoms. A young woman was curled up asleep in the dry bathtub—John paused long enough to confirm she was breathing. Then he reached the enormous walk-in closet.

John expected it to be full of the Goa'uld's stuff, like Jawad had said, but in the center of the room stood a Goa'uld sarcophagus. John had seen one before on a ha'tak. That one had had its own enormous platform that would've spanned half this room. This one rested on the floor and was just narrow enough to fit through the door. He hadn't seen any trace of a ring transporter anywhere, John realized. This thing had probably come up the service elevator in a crate, just like the rest of the furniture. It meant no ships. It meant Lord Anat and Lord Min were running a pretty small operation as Goa'uld enterprises went.

They were sex gods, though. They wanted to get laid and make other people get laid. They weren't like Anubis trying to blow up the whole goddamned planet. John had a sudden flash to Lord Anat murmuring against the back of his neck, tasting his skin, inexorably filling him. His cock began to lengthen, already. What word had Jawad used? 'Crave.' Yeah. That.

John went back out into the bedroom. Ragheb and Teyla were at it, which limited their options for a graceful exit. "She's beautiful, isn't she?" John said as he pressed a hand between Ragheb's shoulder blades.

He gasped, startled at the touch, and laughed. "Sayyed John. Yes, yes she is."

"How are you?" John asked Teyla.

"I am well." She did something with her hips that made Ragheb groan, and John traced his finger down Ragheb's spine slowly, watching the reaction. Ragheb shivered and spread his legs a little. John smiled and reached for one of the tubes of lube on the bed.

"Get me a condom?" he asked Teyla, who reached into the basket of multicolored packets. Ragheb was already wet and relaxed. "You tender?" he asked him, taking a condom from Teyla's hand and rolling it down.

"I'll be fine," Ragheb answered as John slicked the condom. "May I?" He snagged a pillow and pushed it up under Teyla's hips. "For the angle."

"Thank you," she said, pulling Ragheb in closer, and nodded at John. He pushed in slowly, keeping a firm hand on the small of his back, keeping Ragheb deep inside Teyla until John had a rhythm going. It felt—Christ, with how swollen his ass was, thrusting made John feel like he was fucking and getting fucked at the same time. It took a minute to get used to. Then he let up, let Ragheb push back onto him and thrust forward into her.

"Oh, yes," Ragheb moaned. This was really working for him, John saw. After a few minutes, Teyla found John's hands with hers, and together they built a circuit with this guy between them, with Teyla watching John steadily and squeezing his hands periodically, as if she wanted him to feel her pleasure.

"Oh, more, more," Ragheb moaned, and John sped up, started driving harder. Teyla began to shake her way through another orgasm and Ragheb's rhythm broke. John thrust forward hard, driving him into Teyla, and again, and again, as if he were fucking Teyla with Ragheb's body, and John thought for a split second what it would be like to do this with her and Rodney—and Rodney was watching them at this very moment if Teyla had managed to get another bug in place. John gripped Teyla's hands tight, and Ragheb's muscles clenched around him once a second time, and another, and Rodney's ass would hold him, milk him—John was fucking Ragheb wildly, and finally, finally he came.

Once they could walk in a straight line again, leaving was simple. They found their clothes, put enough of them on and pocketed the rest, and snagged some of Jawad's ointment. As they crossed the upstairs living area, they held their breaths against the nish'ta and assured each other that Lord Min and Lord Anat were enjoying all the pleasures an orgy of two dozen could heap upon them. They would not be punished for leaving. The Goa'uld, or at least Ragheb, knew where to find John and Teyla if their presence was desired, in any case. John frowned at that. It didn't sound quite right, somehow, but people had left. Only a fraction of the earlier crowd was still there. They were free to depart. It took effort, but they did it.

  


* * *

  


Back in their suite, Rodney was a basket case. John looked at Teyla and made a command decision: debrief now, and then recover. "Sit," he told Rodney, who was pacing and ranting about something John didn't have the mental bandwidth to deal with yet. He turned to Ronon. "Is he talking about an emergency?"

"No." Ronon steered Rodney to a sofa and turned to them. "What do you need?"

"Sleep, mainly. I'm fine."

Teyla nodded. "For me, as well. We are not injured."

"I was afraid you weren't going to be able to leave," Rodney said. "It just went on and on and on and on and—"

"Rodney," John snapped. "We know. We were there."

Rodney looked abashed. "Sorry, sorry. I know. You're absolutely right."

"We learned some things," John said, trying to keep things on task. It was nearly three in the morning. "Write this down because I plan to be asleep when Woolsey calls."

Ronon handed Rodney one of his computers, and Rodney said, "Okay. Go."

"They have a sarcophagus," John reported, sifting through the clouds in his brain. "No trace of a ring transporter anywhere. Only two Goa'uld. The nish'ta doesn't stop you from thinking; it just makes you want what they want. Jawad said they've been here since before civilization and that they were living at 'the Burj' until recently."

"Which one?" Rodney asked. John shrugged, confused. "Burj means 'tower'," he explained. "It's what half the skyscrapers in this city are called; but, knowing them, it's probably Burj al-Khalifa. It used to be the tallest building in the world." He paused. "Big blue spike right out that window." He pointed at the closed curtains.

"Ah." John didn't look. He remembered the one Rodney meant, he just didn't care. Then again, Rodney over-explaining was Rodney deflecting. John couldn't blame him too much. "No prim'ta. No Jaffa. I really doubt they have any ships. I think they're just, you know, being sex gods. Anything else?" he asked Teyla.

She was leaning against the back of an armchair, with her arms folded on the headrest. John didn't want to sit down yet, either. She tilted her head in thought. "They are difficult to dislike."

"That's the mind control talking," Rodney said.

John shook his head. "No, she's right. All they want is orgasms for everybody. They're not interested in carpet-bombing the planet." John thought orgasms for everybody was a pretty great idea, actually. He just wished they weren't Goa'uld.

Rodney's mouth was hanging open. "Okay," he said decisively, "clearly you're both still affected. We'll have to monitor you. Maybe we need to shock you, too." He turned to Ronon. "Do you think we should shock them? They're sympathizing with Goa'uld. I think we should shock them. They might even need to be stunned."

John shared a worried glance with Teyla. "Can we at least see if it wears off on its own?"

Ronon was studying John and Teyla both. Out of nowhere, he said, "You could take more."

It took a moment for John to parse what he meant, but when he did, he felt it like a mouth on his balls. Teyla was trembling, too. "Christ," John said. "That was fucking unfair."

Ronon shook his head. "You're going to jump McKay's cock as soon as there's a door shut between us, aren't you?"

John shut his eyes. Bastard. "Fine. Do it."

Rodney zapped them with live wires taped to a battery. It stung, but the current was far less than a Taser. "Did it work?" Rodney asked. "This is the charge SG-1 used when they got captured by Seth."

John frowned at Teyla. "Maybe?"

"I am not yet sure."

John shrugged. "Yeah."

"How can you not tell?" Rodney half-shouted.

"Jesus Christ, Rodney! What do electrical shocks do to your hard-ons?" John scrubbed his hands against his jeans. "I'm not on the verge of ripping your clothes off anymore, but my fingers are still fucking buzzing!"

"Reduced inhibitions," Rodney said to Ronon, who nodded.

"Give me a goddamned minute," John said. He couldn't figure out how he felt; all he knew was his fingers felt freaky.

"I still wish to have sex," Teyla announced.

John had taken four steps toward her before he even realized it. "Oh, fuck," he said.

"Do you want—" Ronon started.

"Wait," said Rodney, before John could figure out what Ronon was going to suggest. "If it's in their bodily fluids, it could contaminate us. Maybe the Goa'uld are spreading their cult like that."

"That's ridiculous. It wasn't like a cult," John said, but then Teyla's hand was in his.

"If we were at the SGC, we would be in quarantine right now." She turned to Rodney and Ronon. "I fear we need to ask one of you to exchange bedrooms. This may wear off, but we should not endanger you."

"I will," said Ronon, and as he walked by, the scent of him was enough to make John dig his nails into his palms, hard.

"Yeah, the shock didn't work," he said, gaze fixed on Teyla. "At all."

"No," she agreed.

"Do we need to lock you two in?" asked Rodney worriedly.

"We will be fine," Teyla said quickly. She didn't let go of John's hand.

"I'll see you on the other side," John said, and didn't touch Rodney's face, because if he touched him, he wouldn't be able to stop. Rodney's hands were flailing empty in the air before him, but John just let Teyla draw him away to the wrong room.

Ronon had his shaving kit and a few clothes under one arm. "Try and get some sleep," he said as he passed, but Teyla's dress was already on the floor. They were naked thirty seconds later but fucking again in half that.

"Need you," John kept saying, and Teyla kept saying, "More."

  


* * *

  


It was over in the morning. John sat up to go take a leak, only the pressure on his ass shocked a yell right out of him. Teyla bolted upright only to curl sideways on the bed, moaning softly. John had rolled up to his knees, but same difference. "Where is Jawad's ointment?" she asked, jaw set tight. John snagged it from the nightstand and passed it to her. When she was done, he used it to take care of himself.

He lay back on the bed and sighed. "Aren't we a pair?" She chuckled and gave him a wan smile. "The good news is I have absolutely no desire to have sex, maybe ever again."

"I sympathize completely."

He'd thought the bath they'd taken together at five in the morning would have helped. Then he remembered the size of Anat and Min's cocks and winced. It probably had. "Hey, I can think Anat and Min's names without the 'lord' in front of them now. Cool."

She concentrated for a second and looked pleased. "Me too." She sounded awake and, well, better. John watched her roll sideways off the bed and stand. "We must eat, John. We have slept half the day."

He was in less of a hurry. He lay there watching her open a drawer and put on underwear. "Thank you," he said. She hooked her bra and looked at him quizzically. "I'm just glad it was you, that's all."

She smiled and walked back over to him. "I am as well." She kissed his lips softly, in a way John knew was meant to be the last, at least until they ended up in another crazy situation like this. "Now we must placate your boyfriend." She grinned and turned back to the wardrobe, choosing a simple shirt and long skirt. John wondered if he could get away with not wearing any pants all day. The idea of center seams and jeans kind of made him want to cry.

  


* * *

  


Woolsey called at nine a.m. to request a status update. After he'd relayed the substance of John and Teyla's report, Rodney hadn't known quite what else to tell him. They didn't even know yet if John and Teyla were going to recover from the mind control drugs, but he wasn't about to volunteer that little tidbit. That was when Ronon spoke up. "They're on light duty for the day," he said, and Rodney heaved a sigh of relief.

"Are they wounded?" Woolsey asked. "You didn't mention any injuries."

Ronon said, "A little. At home, Keller and Lam would have them in the infirmary for at least a day."

Rodney opened his mouth to protest, because since when was Ronon a doctor, and yet, it was completely true. Even if they were basically fine, there was still tissue trauma. "They're asleep now," he added.

"Very well. I have some other news to share with the two of you. Dr. Jackson is back from his mission and had this for me to relay. He says the Goa'uld Anat and Min were fairly high-level servants of Hathor several thousand years ago. They may have lived on one of the pleasure planets on which she was queen."

"That would explain why the electric shock didn't negate the nish'ta's effects," Rodney said. "It's a different formula."

"Were they compromised?" Woolsey asked sharply.

"No," Rodney answered immediately.

"Don't think so," said Ronon. "It didn't look like it from the video, but we'll find out when they wake up."

  


* * *

  


When Teyla's bedroom door finally opened and John came out, Rodney leapt to his feet. "You're awake!" he said, and then actually looked at him. He looked like he'd hardly slept at all. "You're wearing a towel." John was kicking his clothes from the previous night along the floor in front of him, like he didn't dare touch them. Teyla passed by him, stifling a laugh.

"How are you?" Ronon asked them.

Teyla pursed her lips. "Very sore, but otherwise fine. And famished."

"God, yes," John agreed. "Is there lunch?" He and his soccer ball of laundry disappeared into his and Rodney's bedroom, and for a second Rodney didn't know what to do. Should he give John privacy? Should he go find out just how brutalized he was under the laconic exterior? He looked to Teyla and pointed at himself, then the bedroom, then the room around them. He was so out of his depth. But she just smiled encouragingly, bit into an apple from the bowl on the counter, and began flipping through the book of room service menus on the counter, so he went.

"Hi," Rodney said when the door shut behind him. John was standing naked in front of the chest of drawers, frowning at his dirty clothes as if trying to levitate them with the power of his mind. He looked ridiculous. "You okay?"

John shrugged. "Like she said. Sore as fuck." He chuckled wryly. "I can't even sit down right now."

Rodney's heart began to race. "Seriously? If it's that bad we need to get you to a doctor." He took a few steps toward John but stopped short. He didn't know how close he should get.

John eyed the distance between them for a second and crossed it, placing a deliberate hand on Rodney's shoulder. "Rodney, we have medicine. We just need to rest today. Chill out."

"Let me see," Rodney said. He needed to know how bad it was. "There could be tearing."

John dropped his hand and turned back to the dresser. "There isn't."

There were finger-shaped bruises on his ass. Not bad ones, but still. "You don't—"

John's voice went steely. "It's been checked out already."

"I—" Rodney wanted to argue, but then he thought maybe, maybe—"Oh shit, this is because—" he stopped, paced a circle, and pointed at John. "This is because you were violated and now you don't want to be touched down there, isn't it?" Rodney felt a flare of burning anger and remorse. "Why did I ever agree to this plan? What a terrible plan. I'm so, so sorry. I don't even—" He flailed his hands wordlessly.

But John was laughing, and what the hell? Rodney was stuck at 'John hurt, do first aid, call medic,' and this was not computing. Then John's arms were around him and the two of them were swaying back and forth, John's laughter rocking them both.

"Are you hysterical? You're having hysterics," Rodney said frantically against the side of John's neck. His mind whirled; so many things could be going completely wrong. And this was John, who wouldn't admit to a problem unless someone else's life depended on it. "John, you're in distress, I need to call someone who's actually qualified to help you."

Which was when John kissed him, still laughing, and held Rodney where they were. "You are so crazy sometimes," John said fondly, looking bizarrely happy. "I'm fine, honest."

"You aren't fine, you're having some kind of a nervous episode. I imagine you're facing serious psychological damage in the aftermath of what they put you through. We should get you in to see Heightmeyer. Let me call the Daedalus and see if they can beam her over."

John let him go, eyeing him skeptically, which was finally at least sort of normal. "Stop overreacting, Rodney. I'm fucked out and sore, and I doubt I'll be ready to bottom again for at least a week, but—" He stepped back and stretched his shoulders and neck. "—I'm good. Hungry. Still tired."

Rodney was staring, absorbing details. John's cock was soft, and there were no other marks on him besides the handful of bruises. There weren't even hickeys. But there could be delayed psychological effects, Rodney realized. John was probably piloting his own ship down the river Nile, and Rodney would have to pay close attention. He should probably talk to Teyla and find out how awful it had really been, since John was categorically incapable of considering things like torture a big deal. He pulled John in for a long hug.

"Just so you know," Rodney said softly, "that was hell for me to watch last night. I know what you said about being pushed just to the edge and not over, but every time they had you do something new, I was waiting for blood and screaming and agony you couldn't get out of." He let go and stepped back, poking John in the chest so he might, possibly, get the point. "I mean, who's to say what happens when one of their dolls breaks! We haven't been here long enough to see what happens when it goes bad!"

"Hey, shh. Shh." John wrapped his arms tightly around him again. "No one broke. We're both fine. It's just that you don't run a marathon and not feel it the next day, right? We're fine."

"And you're never doing it again," Rodney said against his neck.

John huffed a laugh. "If I do, we can have someone else on surveillance."

"What? No!" Rodney broke free again, staring at him in horror. "Do not tell me you actually want to go back in there!"

John's face went stony in that way Rodney hated, all mission-commander-y and unyielding, and Rodney had to cross the room, had to get some space between them. There was even the raised eyebrow John used when he thought you were being an idiot. "Is this mission over?" John said. "Are we done here? Because I haven't gotten an order to go home yet, have you?"

"No, but—" Rodney spread his hands helplessly. John should have known what he meant, damn it.

John shook his head, adamant. "We do what we have to for the job, Rodney. That's how it is. And I'd rather do last night all over again than attempt an operation that could get all those people killed in the crossfire."

Rodney backed into the sofa and sat down hard, because something close to that had happened on a mission last year. Goa'uld would blast through a marketplace of innocent bystanders, screw the casualties. "Point," he said weakly. "Fuck, I hate when you have a valid point."

John snorted. "It's why they sent us instead of a team of marines, isn't it?" He opened a drawer and pulled on a pair of soft briefs. Then he sorted through all of his pants, and kept out his track pants and a pair of loose cotton pajama bottoms.

Rodney stared. "That bad?"

"Around sunrise, we were experimenting with ice."

"Ouch." He watched John put on the track pants and a t-shirt. Then Rodney froze, thinking at light speed. There had been some bad missions over the years, missions where they had been forced to do things at gunpoint. Not sexual things, but forced to watch when innocent people were hurt because of them. They'd all come back shocky and feeling, in Rodney's case, broken and unwilling to go back through the gate again until Heightmeyer and the team had each talked him through his fear of it. This wasn't like that. "You're really okay?" he asked, and even he could hear the disbelief in his voice.

John was leaning back against the wardrobe, watching him. "How do I convince you it wasn't actually bad?" he said.

Rodney blinked. That…was a new data point. He considered the possibility that John could want the sorts of things the Goa'uld had made him do, but, no. That wasn't really possible, was it? Of course not. "Wait, this has to be the nish'ta talking. You wanted what they wanted; you didn't have a choice in the matter."

John pushed off the wardrobe and went to the balcony doors, where sunlight poured in and the blue waters of the Gulf glittered. But when he glanced back at Rodney, his face was pink. He looked caught.

"Or is it that you think you liked it while you were stoned on nish'ta, and now you want to know if you'll like it sober?" Rodney asked, standing up.

"Do we have to talk about this," John said, making a face.

"Yes!" Rodney said, moving a few steps closer to him. "I mean, no, of course not. But I really think we should because you just went through a traumatic ordeal and clearly you're in denial about it, and—"

"Rodney!"

"What?" Rodney threw up his hands. "Are you telling me you wanted any of those things before?" He paused. "Did you want Teyla?"

"No!" John said. "And, well, yes, but no."

Rodney folded his arms over his chest, suddenly angry. "Pick one, Colonel."

"I never wanted Teyla like that before last night." He glared at Rodney. "You should know damned well that I didn't."

"Fine," Rodney snapped. "Good. But if Teyla's the 'no', then what's the 'yes'?"

John scratched the back of his neck and let out a breath. Then they heard a loud knock out in the suite. "Look, we'll talk about it later, okay? That sounds like lunch."

Rodney wanted to protest, but John's stomach was growling audibly. Then John was opening the door on a clatter of dishes from a room service cart, and Rodney had no choice but to squash down his frustration and follow.

  


* * *

  


Woolsey called back in the late afternoon. Sheppard and Teyla were lying on sofas in the living room watching a movie. McKay was at the dining table with his computers, scanning surveillance, so Ronon picked up the ringing phone.

"How are they?" Woolsey asked.

Ronon considered. "Not bad. No permanent damage. McKay's neurotic as ever—"

"Hey!"

"—Sheppard's a little more delicate—"

"Hey!"

"Yeah, you resemble that remark," McKay said.

"—but Teyla will be back in fighting form by tomorrow night."

"Thank you," she said.

"I see," Woolsey paused. "And the security of the operation?"

"They didn't get anything out of us," Sheppard said. "They didn't even try."

"Also, they apparently think we're all Americans," McKay said derisively.

"I'm glad to hear it," Woolsey answered slowly. "Dr. McKay, what is the status of our subjects now?"

McKay looked at a laptop screen and turned it so Ronon could see. "They're having sex. Again."

"Hmm. Have they been alone at all?"

McKay drummed his fingers on the table. "Actually, since Teyla put the first bugs in, they've almost always had at least one person with them. Like, even going to the bathroom, someone's with them at least half the time. It's...weird."

Woolsey made a concerned noise. "Do they ever leave the suite?"

"Yes," Teyla replied. "We have followed them to the Imperial Club a few times; however, they have not left the resort since we began watching them."

"Not at all?" Woolsey sounded amazed.

"They have everything they need brought to them," Ronon said.

McKay added, "No, really, they have sex _all_ the time. Their stamina is astonishing."

Ronon glared at him. "It's the Goa'uld symbiote, McKay. No physical limits to what the host body can do."

"I know, I know, but you don't see it in action like this every day." Ronon raised an eyebrow. "Er, so to speak."

Woolsey coughed. "Quite. Well. The good news is we have a plan. The troublesome news is we can't act on it until Colonel Sheppard and Ms. Emmagan are recovered. Also, we will need to approach the Goa'uld when there are as few people present as possible."

McKay was making a face. "This sounds like you're sending them back into the den of iniquity." Ronon didn't know the reference, but he took its meaning.

"Christ, Rodney, it wasn't a torture chamber. We've had worse from random villagers pissed off that we dared to go through their stargate."

"Thank you, Colonel Sheppard," Woolsey said. "We do want to ensure your safety as much as is possible. We think we have a way."

  


* * *

  


The party had been on Thursday night, the beginning of the Dubai weekend. Jawad had visited Friday evening, bringing more analgesic ointment and an invitation for John and herself to come to the Bridge Suite again any time they wished. The young man had seemed especially enamored of John and had insisted on examining the progress of John's healing, much to Rodney's distress.

Now it was Sunday morning, the start of the local work-week, and Teyla felt markedly better. John, too, was moving around with ease.

"What do you say, are we ready to get out of here?" John asked at breakfast.

Rodney sighed. He keyed one of his laptops, tabbing through video signals and then cued the audio feeds. He counted on his fingers as he went, then looked up, frowning. "There can't be more than fifteen people in there right now, including the cooks and maid."

John nodded. "If we give them an hour, maybe? What do you think?" he asked Teyla.

She considered. "I believe that should work. Are we in agreement that Jawad appears to be the lo'taur to Min?"

"Given that he does everything short of wiping his—"

"Please do not be vulgar at the table," Teyla said. They were eating, after all.

"Sorry," he said, "but…" He waved a hand. "Never mind."

"It bothers me," she said, "that we cannot identify Anat's primary servant."

"Ragheb?" John suggested, but his face told her he did not believe it.

Teyla and Rodney both made a doubtful noise. Rodney said, "If he were lo'taur, then he should have been on servant duty, right? Apart from acting as procurer, we haven't seen him do very much for Anat or Min."

Ronon stroked his scraggly beard in a way that made Teyla think of how iguanas on her home planet groomed themselves. "No, but the Bridge Suite concierge does everything Anat wants. They're not paying for the suite or anything else."

"But Goa'uld are supposed to have a lo'taur, right?" said Rodney.

Ronon shrugged. "There can be a pretty high turnover. Anat's current host might even be its old lo'taur."

Rodney grimaced. "That's awful."

Teyla tilted her head. "It is presented as a reward for good service. Of course, the lo'taur does not know the true horror of what is to come."

John met her eyes. He was finished eating, and she was no longer hungry. He said, "Let's pack up."

Packing took little time. Readying herself to see Anat and Min again took longer. She felt conflicting emotions, and she was unused to this. In her experience, Goa'uld were the enemy; they were to be destroyed. But these had only harmed one who tried to destroy them. She had felt enormous pleasure with them and because of them, but she also felt enormous irritation at having been physically intimate with men she would never have chosen. She had wanted but not wanted. The Goa'uld had robbed them all of the right to choose, but the coercion had been biochemical rather than violent. She and John had gone in cognizant that they were sacrificing their ability to consent, but it had felt good. She had, in fact, loved every minute and would do all of it again, except with partners of her own choosing.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror after brushing her teeth. There was no real harm done. She had gone into the proverbial pleasure dome and been pleasured to the limit. Then she had left. But she had been lucky in that she knew what she was entering into, while the scores of other people there had not. They had been procured by men like Ragheb to please the Goa'uld and win favor. And yet, everyone she had seen had been focused on pleasure. There was only desire and its fulfillment.

She sighed and painted on her lip color. There was a tap at the door. "It is open," she said.

John walked in, dressed in blue jeans and a white button-down shirt. She was wearing pink and khaki. They made quite an attractive reflection in the mirror, she thought. "You okay?" he asked.

"I have never not wished a Goa'uld to die before." Frowning, she led him out of the bathroom. She placed the last of her belongings in the overnight case and laid her purse on top. She was ready.

"We might get lucky," John said, smiling in his self-deprecating way, as if he did not dare to hope.

Then she narrowed her eyes. "That is a play on words." She punched him lightly on the arm, as Ronon would. "And not a good one."

He laughed. "Come on. Let's go get our goodbye kisses."

  


* * *

  


Rodney watched, the same as last time, only not. This time, his gut wasn't churning, he wasn't fighting the urge to chew his fingernails to the quick, he wasn't saying, "Ronon, you have to get in there," every ten minutes.

John and Teyla were welcomed in, and Rodney counted only eight other people in the suite. Presumably some of them did work for a living, or at least go home eventually. Anat and Min were, surprise, having sex again. It was a boy this time, a little younger than Jawad but nearly identical to him. Somebody apparently had a type, Rodney thought, as he watched them skewer him from both ends. He looked like bliss incarnate, and Rodney wondered how long it would be before John began to ask for some of the more extreme things he had done. Rodney wondered if he could give that to him.

Not that it mattered at the moment. John and Teyla had reached the bedroom. They were dressed but unarmed. Teyla didn't even have her purse. They watched, John standing behind Teyla, his arms wrapped around her. Yeah, they were affected. He was stroking her breasts and kissing the side of her neck. Rodney sighed.

Then the Goa'uld finished and Jawad—there he was—came forward with a basin and cloths to clean up his bosses. He rubbed against them, naked and hard, but Min sent him to wait on a chaise by the window. One of the bouncers from the other night came in and carried the now-sleeping Jawad-clone away in his arms. Rodney held his breath.

Teyla was talking, expressing how much they enjoyed Thursday night and regret that they would be leaving soon. John had actually pulled her skirt up and had a hand cupped over her mound. Then they were kissing. Then they were kissing Anat and Min.

"Come on, come on, come on already," Rodney said.

Teyla signaled him first, then stepped on John's toe, hard. He scratched his neck, under the line of his collar, and pushed his hands into Anat's hair, kissing like he meant it.

Rodney touched his radio. "Novak, this is McKay. Do you have a lock?"

She hiccupped into his ear. "Affirmative."

He watched John take a half-step back. "Do it now," he snapped, "Now." On the screen, a second passed, two. Min reached out to stroke Teyla's face. And then he and Anat vanished.

"We have the prisoners," Novak confirmed, "and the Tok'ra are standing by. The symbiotes could be out by tomorrow."

"Good," Rodney said, still watching. John and Teyla had turned toward each other, blinking a little, but it was always disorienting when people you were standing next to got beamed out. Then Jawad vaulted off his chaise, shouting in panic. John was reaching toward him with quelling hands, but there was no time for that.

"Shit," Rodney said. Never mind that the kid was naked and unarmed. "Novak, phase two now-now-now!" he yelled into his radio.

A moment later, Ronon materialized in the room with a zat in one hand and his blaster in the other. A second after that, Jawad was on the floor. John looked livid, but also conflicted, and Rodney only hoped his brain was firing on most cylinders. As he watched, Ronon handed radios to John and Teyla and stuck a transceiver dot on Jawad's outstretched hand. "One more prisoner, Novak," Ronon said, and Jawad was vanishing. Rodney should have known Ronon would take charge once he was on the scene.

"John, Teyla, how badly are you dosed?" he asked. "How badly is Ronon getting dosed?"

"I'm fine," Ronon said.

"Hard to say," John said in a harsh voice. "It's ambient, but it's less intense than the other night."

"I wouldn't have guessed that from here." And, yeah, that came out exactly as cattily as Rodney meant it. He wasn't surprised Teyla didn't reply.

"Couldn't have them thinking we'd suddenly turned shy on them, could we?" John retorted, and Rodney bit back three different comebacks before he realized Ronon was on the move, stunning people as he found them. First the sleeping boy, then the bouncer, and then two women and a man on the suite's first floor. They were dressed in western business suits.

Ronon said, "Two of these three are wearing badges from the concierge office."

"I think that's everyone," Rodney said, looking at his various screens.

"Unless it's not," Ronon said, and proceeded to check every room and closet.

"John, Teyla," Rodney started. Then Novak was arguing with John about beaming them up, but of course John wouldn't leave until the site was secure.

"We'll wait right here," Teyla said. She had taken John's hand and led him to sit on the bed. Rodney heard her forcing John to count his inhales, as she did in one of her meditation routines. Rodney consoled himself that at least they weren't making out.

"Dr. McKay, we have your team's luggage." Novak reported. Rodney hadn't even noticed, but beyond the dining table, the pile of bags in the living room was gone.

"Yes, yes you do," he said tiredly. "Is the NID's cleanup crew ready?" There would be detox and interrogations and some kind of public relations cover story Rodney couldn't begin to imagine.

"They're standing by now to beam in," Novak said.

"Clear," Ronon said at last.

"Told you," Rodney snapped. Not that he blamed Ronon for insisting on a visual confirmation, not really. It was just that he had been right, and the more time they wasted, the more evil fumes they were inhaling. Rodney shut the laptops and began disconnecting the auxiliary monitors. In his ear, he heard Novak teleporting the three of them up into orbit. The subsequent quiet probably was her talking to the NID team on another channel.

"Rodney, what are you waiting for?" John said peevishly in his ear.

"Computers?" Rodney said in his best 'duh' voice. "Give me a chance to get all this crap packed up."

John sighed audibly. It sounded like there was something else there, something he couldn't say wherever he was on the Daedalus, which was John tip to toe, and Rodney should really learn to just deal with his whole stupid privacy thing, already. Damned regs. John said, "We'll see you in a minute, McKay."

"Right," Rodney answered. John was probably just horny because of the nish'ta.

Unless it was something else. He and John hadn't made any declarations beyond, "Stick around?" and "Of course I want you to stay! You're—I really like this." That had been pretty huge, considering that it was John, and Rodney had been half-afraid John would call it all off as soon as he realized they were a thing. But he hadn't. Months had passed and John had stayed and expected Rodney to stay, too. They just didn't…talk.

Rodney scooped his remaining stray cables into his bag and took the obligatory last walk around the suite, looking for anything they'd forgotten. He found a hair tie, John's razor, and his own toothbrush. He put them in with the computers and then collected a bag of fresh fruit and blueberry muffins from the refrigerator. That had to be everything. He hoped.

He took a breath. He and John were going to have to figure this out. Rodney needed to find a way to say, "More, I need more. You have to let me see you." Now that he knew what he was missing, what John without inhibitions looked like. What these fucking Goa'uld had had from him that Rodney hadn't, not that Rodney needed the kinky sex. He wanted the openness…that John trusted Teyla with, but not Rodney. Although he got that, really. Teyla was easy for him to open up to, too—way easier than John, in some ways.

Rodney's radio clicked again. "Jeez, McKay, where the hell are you?" It was John again, in full-on whine. And underneath he sounded worried and impatient, a ridiculous nag, and damn it, this was nish'ta-reduced inhibitions making John call him on the radio every two minutes, wasn't it? Crap. But it would wear off, and then they could fix it. They had to. He had beer in the fridge at home—no alien chemical mind control there, just good old alcohol. They would find their way through this.

"On my way," he told John and pushed the gear into a tighter circle on the floor. "Okay," he said. "McKay to Novak."

"Daedalus here. We're ready whenever you are," she said.

"Go ahead, Novak. I'm ready."

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  Look, it's Min!


End file.
